The Global Lighting and Energy Access Partnership (Global LEAP) — a Clean Energ Ministerial initiative led by the U.S. Department of Energy and supported by a variety of development partners including Power Africa — has announced the Winners and Finalists of the 2016–17 Global LEAP Awards Television and Fan Competitions. The Global LEAP Awards identify and promote the world’s best, most energy-efficient appliances that are designed for use with off-grid solar energy systems.

The Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) Advanced Power Plant Flexibility Campaign is set up to build strong momentum and commitment from participants to implement solutions that make power plants more flexible. Flexibility is critical to integrate wind and solar energy into power systems. The campaign covers all forms of dispatchable power plants, particularly coal, gas, hydro and bioenergy.

At the 22nd session of the Conference of the Parties (COP22) in Marrakech, Morocco, energy leaders from across the globe are focusing on concrete steps and celebrating actions taken that will achieve the priorities of the Paris Agreement, including the promotion of energy access worldwide. Among the activities featured at Marrakech were those of the Clean Energy Ministerial’s (CEM’s) Global Lighting and Energy Access Partnership (Global LEAP) and its partners.

Since 2011, the Clean Energy Ministerial’s 21st Century Power Partnership has brought major players from the public and private sector together at the Global Green Growth Forum (3GF) Summit to drive change. At this year’s 3GF Summit Partnership Session—which took place on 7 June 2016 in Copenhagen, Denmark—speakers from the United States, China, European Union (Denmark), Ukraine, Mexico, and Chile provided global perspectives on the transformation to a more sustainable power system following COP21 and debated the conclusions with about 70 high-level participants.

USAID and DFID make $600,000 in cash prizes available for the competition’s market-leading innovators

The United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) Ideas to Impact Programme (I2I) joined the Global LEAP Awards Off-Grid Refrigerator Competition, a global competition aimed at spurring innovation in the emerging off-grid refrigeration market and advancing access to modern energy services around the world. I2I’s partnership and support increases the total award prize to $600,000.

The Clean Energy Ministerial’s International Smart Grid Action Network (ISGAN) has released a new casebook, Spotlight on Smart and Strong Power T&D Infrastructure Version 2.0, which provides insight and knowledge on smart grid approaches to managing increasingly complex power systems.

Last week, the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) at the World Bank announced $300,000 in co-funding to a project that is also funded by the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). USAID–India’s new clean energy project, Greening the Grid, aims to support the Government of India in managing the large-scale integration of renewable energy into the Indian power grid.

Last year, the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) and the Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) at the World Bank announced a partnership to help developing countries integrate renewable energy into their power grids. One of the first activities in this partnership was a staff assignment from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to ESMAP. Since August 2015, this “secondment” at ESMAP has facilitated better communication between NREL, ESMAP, and the CEM initiative teams. Nate Blair was selected for the staff assignment.

Global LEAP Partners Unveil Innovative New Efforts to Deploy Clean Energy to Under-Electrified Communities throughout the Developing World

Partners in the Global Lighting and Energy Access Partnership (Global LEAP), an initiative of the Clean Energy Ministerial led by the U.S. Department of Energy, today announced a slate of new investments to advance the global market for off-grid renewable energy solutions. The efforts announced today will support the development and deployment of highly-energy efficient lighting and appliance products designed for use with small-scale distributed solar systems. These technologies are essential to achieving the United Nation’s 7th Sustainable Development Goal of achieving universal energy access by 2030.